


The Love Not Found

by prince_pelleas



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Coming to an Understanding, Developing Friendships, Discussions on divinity, Gen, Mild spoilers for LB2 and Kiara's backstory, discussions on humanity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25524307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prince_pelleas/pseuds/prince_pelleas
Summary: Kiara and Skadi are two characters that I feel have a ton in common with regards to their past and godhood - they're both defined by their loneliness and their distance from humanity, which I find to be really interesting, so I wanted to do a short piece of the two of them meeting each other!
Relationships: Skadi & Kiara
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	The Love Not Found

Kiara's smile was as calm as ever - an unchanging, calm mask, only befitting the visage of a Goddess. She was eternally charming and graceful, but Skadi knew that the fellow goddess's calm masked a deep-seated cruelty well enough to distrust her very presence. Whatever reasons Kiara had for appearing before her, she was uninterested.

"We are rather similar, Queen of Ice. We should maybe pass some time together - lose ourselves in each other's company."

"I would not like that." Closing her eyes, Skadi sighed. "We are not compatible, you and I. I hold no love for you. Leave me."

"Oh? Why, I'd say we are quite similar! After all," Kiara's gentle smile widened slightly "You were loved once, by those around you, weren't you? As was I. We are both much-"

"I disagree. We may have both been loved, but that doesn't make us alike, Demonic Bodhisattva. The love the gods bequeathed upon me was a gift. I chose to accept it, yes, but it was given to me. You took your love by force."

"No - I allowed those that loved me to find fulfillment and desire. They were happy, weren't they? If I gave them the salvation they desired. Should they not be graceful? Ah, they might've been trapped in the palm of my hand, but they loved me fully and earnestly. Did your people not love you in the same way? Did they not give themselves over to your rule, mind body and soul?"

Skadi remained silent. There was nothing she could do to dissuade Kiara - to stop her prodding questions, her intrusive acts. The Bodhisattva would took what she wanted from others, leaving nothing left.

"Oh? You have nothing to say? How odd. I would think that the queen of ice would have more to say."

"We were both wrong - but I didn't have a choice. You did."

"And yet, we were both abandoned - you by your gods, who were supposed to love you, and me, by..." She paused. No matter how long it had been, or how much she had changed from that little girl she was back then, remembering always came with a bitter taste. Those swaying, golden curtains - the silhouettes, dancing and singing and laughing, just oh-so out of reach.

And the book, that brought her so much joy, those pages she had read, again and again, wishing for that girl to have a happier ending. But it was not to be.

As though sensing the conflict in Kiara, Skadi reached out to touch her arm. "I. Suppose we do have this in common. I too... was never truly one of the Gods. And yet when they left me, and I was all alone...I didn't know what to do with myself. I followed my duty, and yet." She smiled. "But that's where we are different. I always wanted to protect humanity - I did what I could to save them, to prevent my children from dying out. And yet I couldn't."

"Hmmm... you, a woman with a gaze like ice, admitting doubts? How interesting."

"Unlike you, I am aware that my faults are great and many - I failed my children. To deny that would be wrong of me."

"But what's the point of being a Goddess if you're not all-powerful? In becoming a Beast, there was nothing I would've liked more then to control all of humanity- to have them love me."

"I am not a beast - I am a mother, the mother of Scandinavia. And what I did to my children... that was wrong. Their lives are short and fragile, and I took advantage of that."

"But if humans are so inferior to us, why should we bother with caring about them? Why should we care about ants, as goddesses?"

"Because as gods, we must help them - they are my children, and so I will love them. Their lives and their safety was entrusted to me by Odin, and I will follow in his will to protect him." Skadi stilled. "Though... I cannot deny that I had once wanted to act like you.

"You should've - the humans don't deserve to be seen as equal to us."

"No. They do. That's what. That's what Odin would've wanted of me, I think."

"But why does it matter, what a long-gone God would've wanted you to do? You were free to act as you please."

"Because... No, I did want to protect humanity. Even when.. Even after I was abandoned, I wanted to protect them. Because I was a Bride of the Gods - it is in my nature to love. Though still, maybe I did oppose the will of Odin - his familiars did help the other side."

"Oh my, it appears you're doubting yourself - how strange, considering how sure you are that you're the Mother of Scandinavia."

"Doubt... no..." Skadi paused to collect herself. Did she really doubt her decisions? Could she really say that it was not worth it? She wanted to say no. That it was her choice, and she did not regret it, or fear it - that it didn't and hadn't hurt her, and that she felt no doubt. And yet a part of her did regret - it longed to exist in a world where that suffering, that loss of all those who she loved - that loved her - never happened. Where she was never had to rule humans. Where she would love, and be loved, and have a daughter. Where she wouldn't be struck, wearing that body of a human woman to hide from Surtr. Where she would die, with everyone that she loved and cared for, forever a Bride.

And yet. A part of her could not deny how much she loved her world - her people, her kingdom of ice and fire. How much love she had put into creating such a world - a world where she was able to find love and happiness in her own right, in spite of the loneliness.

A miracle of a world, that should've never existed, and yet had.

A world she couldn't protect.

"No. I don't regret a moment of it - I regret my helplessness, and my failure to protect it, but I do not regret my desire to love my people."

Kiara's eyes widened, just a fraction. So, the ice queen could understand her own feelings. How interesting of her. She definitely didn't expect for such a woman to be self-aware, let alone fully understanding of her actions.

  
"Hmm... Skadi. I think we should be friends, you and I. We both did awful things, you and I - and yet we do not regret them."

"Friends... how strange, that word. Do gods have friends? That white-haired lancer seems to think so. And yet he's human... maybe that's why. But I'll accept. It appears that I understand you just a bit more, Kiara. We should meet again someday - maybe over some ice cream."

"My, you've really warmed up to me. I will wait for the day with great excitement."

At that, the two women parted ways - a quiet silence enveloping one, like a shield of ice, or a storm of whirling snowflakes dancing in the wind, and an inhuman calm about the other, like a beautiful statue that glided across the floor, or a lotus flower blooming on a still pond.


End file.
